MSc Design and Transport students were treated to a look at Travel De Courcey’s battery electric powered Optare Versa buses on Monday morning this week. Travel company boss Mike De Courcey explained it had been his ambition to be the first UK operator to use the buses fitted with the fast charging technology at the War Memorial Park bus stop. The three buses are being exclusively used for the Park & Ride South to city-centre route. With a maximum range of approx 70 miles on a full charge, these first generation buses manage 9 or more round trips before needing a top-up charge from the fast charging points. The buses are recharged at the end of the day’s operations at the bus depot at Rowley Drive, near Coventry Airport using a trickle charger on-board the vehicles from a 3-phase mains supply.

Course Director of Interior DesignBob Verheijden is currently in Shanghai to launch two pieces of furniture that he has designed for the University’s planned PHNIX Collection in collaboration with local craft manufacturers Sitting Firm.

Design Workshop from Marieke de Vogel with students from Product Design: 10th February 2014

Marieke de Vogel with the third year Product Design students

Marieke de Vogel, Senior Lecturer in Multimedia Design from The HAN University in Holland delivered a ‘pressure cooker’ workshop to our third year Product Design students during a recent trip to the UK. At the moment she is researching adult play with smart designer toys in modern ludic times. The aim of this workshop was to create a playful interactive collaborative experience with the emphasis of developing toy designs. The workshop used padlet (an interactive message wall) and Facebook to support the research, development and evaluation stages of the design process. The students had to design a ‘blank canvas’ toy with a background story and posted the results to a specially opened Facebook page for this occasion. ‘Bob’ the alien from Daniel Frances had the most likes and vas taken forward for development by the entire group.

It takes an exercise of this nature – an exhibition of sculptural pieces, each of which represents a significant design movement – to make startlingly visible to the visitor just how central has been the role of the designer in the construction of the material, cultural and social fabric of the world we inhabit today. It serves to highlight to the design students themselves that they belong to an influential continuum and that, historically, their contributions very much mattered; and, more importantly, that they should continue to matter.

After leaving in 2011 with first class honours, James worked as a Junior Designer at JMDA in Worcester, and will now contribute to projects centred on community healthcare and assisted living as an in-house Industrial Product Designer.

Today Industrial Design finalists (including Product, Transport and Automotive students) held a launch event for the exposition of a term of design research. Students have been working to either ‘think big’ about a particular problem or opportunity to generate an innovative design brief, or they have conducted a range of solution focused design investigations based on a specific design brief. The research conducted by individual students included desk-based research, experiments and empirical research which has been analysed and drawn together within an infographic poster. This informative and graphically dynamic way of distilling and managing data is becoming increasingly relevant in the design profession and made for a colourful and rewarding exhibition.

The Design Roots exhibition showcases the group work of first year Automotive and Transport students. Students are tasked with producing original sculptures in the two weeks before Christmas that explore the roots of design through a variety of design movements ranging from Arts & Crafts through to Eco-Design. The response to this work has been very favourable within the School of Art & Design, and has also provided an opportunity for visiting prospective students and their parents at Open Days to see the high standard of creativity and model making expected of our applicants.